Bruce and Jeanne King have accused Stivers Ford Lincoln Mercury in Waukee of pushing through a sale to Austin, 22, who has autism. / BILL NEIBERGALL/THE REGISTER

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Austin King says he wasn’t looking to buy a car last August when he stopped by his old employer, Stivers Ford Lincoln in Waukee. The 22-year-old says he just wanted to see a couple of former co-workers and, being something of a car nut, check out what was on the lot.

King was hovering around the used cars when he was approached by a salesman.

“I’m just looking,” King recalls saying. “When I get my Mustang paid off, I want to look for something with better gas mileage.”

Then from the salesman came those magic words: “I can probably get you into a new one for the same price as your Mustang.”

The run-in that ensued between the folks at Stivers and King’s parents, Bruce and Jeanne King, seems understandable at first.

The salesman offered to run some numbers to see for what kind of loan Austin King might qualify. King wound up trading in his Ford Mustang — on which he still owed more than $9,000 — for a new Ford Fusion sedan, assuming almost $30,000 in debt and monthly payments of $498.

Within the hour, Jeanne King returned to the dealership with the Fusion, telling the owner that her son has a mild form of autism, that he could not afford the car, and that he could be impulsive and did not have the capacity to enter into legal contracts.

She produced court papers showing she and her husband were Austin’s legal guardians, responsible for managing his “personal property and effects.”

Scott Politte, the dealership’s president, balked at the mother’s protest. Austin King is an adult. He worked at the dealership for about eight months in 2010 and 2011. He bought two other vehicles from the dealership before he bought the Fusion.

The contract King signed also stated clearly: “State law does not provide for a cooling off or cancellation period for this sale. After you sign this contract, you may only cancel it if the seller agrees or for legal cause. You cannot cancel this contract simply because you change your mind.”

According to Jeanne King, the confrontation ended with Politte telling her she was a nosy mom and “I want you off my dealership now.”

But in a consumer fraud lawsuit filed this week in Polk County District Court, the Kings suggest what happened behind closed doors before the confrontation is more troubling.

That’s when, they allege, Stivers employees fudged a credit application to Ford Motor Credit to sell Austin a car he never should have qualified to own.

The Kings contacted the Reader’s Watchdog and the Consumer Protection Division of the Iowa attorney general’s office months ago about the deal, which they say ruined their son’s credit, left him with more than $9,000 in debt and no car.

According to loan documents submitted as part of the consumer fraud lawsuit, Austin King provided a pay stub from his part-time job that showed he made just $8.50 per hour.

The dealership submitted applications to three lenders that were denied, even though the applications substantially overstated King’s modest $1,462 monthly income and said he lived with his parents, according to the lawsuit.

The fourth credit application, to Ford Motor Credit, was accepted, but contained more wrong statements, the lawsuit says.

Among the misinformation: King owed just $5,000 on his Mustang instead of $9,849; he was putting down $2,595 cash; and he was a technician instead of a student intern responsible for $337 rent at the time.

Jeanne King told me when we first talked months ago that people at the dealership contended Austin misled them to get the financing. But Austin told her they never asked what he paid for rent, and that he never got to see the financing application.

He said the finance person also wrote down as income what Austin used to make when he worked at Stivers, even though he supplied a pay stub from his new employer.

Jeanne King and her husband said Austin has tried before to buy other cars at other dealerships, but he always was denied because he didn’t have a co-signer or qualify on his own for financing. (When he wasn’t working at his internship, Austin King was a full-time student who qualifies for Social Security disability payments.)

Politte told me Thursday after conferring with an attorney that he denied all the allegations in the lawsuit, except that the Fusion was the third vehicle King had purchased from Stivers and that King had worked at the dealership for eight months.

“We will defend the false claims made against us in this suit and defend our reputation,” he read from a prepared statement. “We don’t want to try it in public.”

Stivers has had several opportunities to mend the fence but has chosen not to do so.

One was on Aug. 2, when Bruce and Jeanne King returned to the dealership, the day after the confrontation. The Kings said they handed over the keys to the Fusion and asked for the keys to the Mustang, but salespeople told them they would impound the Fusion if they didn’t take it home.

The Mustang, they were told, had been sold.

Days later, Austin and his parents saw the Mustang was back on the lot, and they took pictures of it.

Another bothersome aspect of the deal to Brad Schroeder, the Kings’ attorney, is that King wound up paying top dollar.

The $28,398.65 contract he was asked to sign shows he was paying for full sticker price, 7.9 percent interest, a $2,470 extended warranty, $700 in GAP insurance and $500 for something called the “ultimate plan,” he said.

What did Stivers do after the Kings refused to take the Fusion back? The car was dubbed a repo, sold at auction for $17,100 and Ford Motor Credit went after Austin for more than $9,087 remaining on his loan, the Kings said.

At the center of all of this is a young man who clearly wants independence but has a track record suggesting he is vulnerable at times and needs protecting.

According to his parents, the reason Austin left Stivers’ employment in the first place was because he had been bullied by young people who worked on the lot. The Kings told me the dealership’s human resources people got involved for a time, but that the bullying picked up again and Austin decided to leave.

Austin King turns 23 next week. He says he didn’t realize he’d made a mistake until after the finance guy printed out the contract King had signed on an electronic box, and he saw his payments would be $498 a month for five years.

“I didn’t know what to do,” he said. “That’s when I called my mom.”

Although it is true King had successfully bought vehicles at Stivers before, he had done so with his parents’ consent — and after they had him check the monthly payments and insurance costs.

On Wednesday, I called the attorney general’s office to inform Bill Brauch, the head of the Consumer Protection Division, that a consumer fraud lawsuit had been filed. I wanted to know if there had been any progress in that office since the Kings had filed a formal complaint.

Brauch said he had been trying to “unwind the deal.” Although the parties disagree about who supplied the false information, “the bottom line is the application information is not accurate,” he said.

An hour later, Brauch called the Kings while we were sitting in their kitchen to say Ford Motor Credit was sending the Kings a letter. Company officials, he said, promised to withdraw the claim for $9,087 and do everything possible to fix Austin’s credit.

The Kings said they would press on with the lawsuit because they don’t want other vulnerable people like Austin to be pressured into a loan.

After our interview, the Kings, their attorney, a photographer and I walked out of their West Des Moines home just as Austin was returning from work.

Sitting in the driveway was a shiny new black Jaguar.

“Whose is that?” I asked, thinking, for just a moment, the worst.

Everyone broke out in laughter.

Of course, I smiled.

The Jag belonged to the attorney.

Lee Rood’s Reader’s Watchdog column helps Iowans get answers and accountability from public officials, the justice system, businesses and nonprofits. Contact her at lrood@dmreg.com or by calling 515-284-8549. To read past columns, go to DesMoinesRegister.com/ readerswatchdog.